


a few steps

by ever_neutral



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-13
Updated: 2010-08-13
Packaged: 2017-10-17 22:32:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/181987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ever_neutral/pseuds/ever_neutral
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The history of Buffy-and-Spike can be traced by and large through their encounters at the Bronze.</p><p>[S2-6. Song!fic?????]</p>
            </blockquote>





	a few steps

**Author's Note:**

> FYI, all the music references/lyrics are from Nickel, The Cure, The Killingtons, Summercamp, Once More With Feeling, Michelle Branch, Bush, and Aimee Mann. In that order. I MAY HAVE GONE CRAZY WITH CONTINUITY, YES.

When Willow suggests a Scooby night at the Bronze to “de-angst,” Buffy’s not about to argue. A night free from gut-wrenching pain and horror, from nightmares of straitjackets and anti-psychotic meds, a night of cheap daiquiris and adolescent dancing, as though they’ve never left fiancées at altars or tried to kill all their friends?

That’s the plan.

Buffy is full of enthusiasm. It’s only partly feigned.

Of course, when they arrive, _he’s_ there. From the bar, she sees him beneath the stairs. He's leaning into a girl with ridiculous electric blue hair, his lips inches from her face.

Buffy immediately flashes on _manic-panic skank, and his bleeding tragic taste in women_.

She’s not surprised to see him. The history of Buffy-and-Spike can be traced by and large through their encounters at the Bronze. If the plan had been to escape the unfortunate past and all its unfortunate mistakes, she’d made a fatal error in her choice of refuge.

No, she doesn’t feel surprise. What she feels is similar to a back roundhouse to the ribs, forcibly expelling the breath she wasn’t aware she was holding.  

But he hasn’t seen her yet. She’s safe.

~

Of course, he knows she’s there. He’s not an idiot. _Not a complete one, anyway_. He smelled her as soon as she walked in; glanced over to observe her in her apparent element, complete with stylish-yet-affordable boots, Scoobies and all. No less than he expected, really.

But Spike knows how to take his time when he’s willing. And right now he’s in the mood to be stubborn. Let her knuckle under first.

He focuses his gaze on the blue-haired would-be snack in front of him and tries to tune out the girl’s stoned droning. She’s no Rhodes scholar, but she’ll do for distraction. He’s determined not to cave where a certain Slayer’s concerned.

He tries to forget that he’s never had much success in that particular game.

\---

1.           _A moment of weakness._

No, not a moment. More like years passing in moments. _There’ll be more to come_.

He knows it’s her, instantly. The Slayer. The next notch on his belt. The next dance.

She doesn’t see him. Here in the throbbing, undulating, dimly-lit mass of warm bodies, he’s safe. _She won’t be_. He’ll remind himself of that in a moment.

_“I’m one step away, from crashing to my knees…”_

Maybe not one, maybe not two, but he’s not many more steps away.  

But _her_ time’s up. Very soon.

Spike tears his eyes away and makes his way over to a minion. “Go get something to eat.”

As the vamp moves off to do his bidding, Spike allows himself just one moment of smugness. He’s starting to feel it. That pulsing excitement, the _hunger_ he equates with being _alive_.  

_It doesn’t eat away at him yet, destroying everything that’s him until all that’s left is her, in a dead shell. Not yet._

\---

The blue-haired bint’s name is Patience. _Patience_ , for crying out loud. He calls her Patricia a couple of times, deliberately, just to annoy her. Because he can. Because he’s _Spike_ , and he can do anything he bloody well wants.

Patience seems to agree. She doesn’t half care how he addresses her. From the way she looks at him, he senses she wouldn’t half mind _anything_ he might do to her.

It makes him feel strong, and powerful, and all that. Like he hasn’t felt in years.

\---

2.           _The night is always young_

This time, she’s colliding into him at the edge of the dance-floor in her reckless euphoria, nearly causing his beer to go flying.

Obviously, he’s not thrilled to see her. But not surprised either.

“Oh, _you_.”

“And… you.”

His lack of surprise doesn’t last long.

Of course, he should know it’s not _her_. But he doesn’t. _It's a moment of weakness._

She’s pleasantly flushed with the effort of dancing the night away. Her friends are nowhere in sight.

 _That should have been a clue_. But as it happens, he’s momentarily lost the ability to think clearly.

“I could squeeze you until you pop like warm champagne…”  

For a moment, he has an out-of-body experience. He sees her swallow him whole. _Like it’s not him at all._

_“I’m watching me fall….”_

“… And you beg me to hurt you _just a little bit more_. And you know why I don’t?”

They’re one step away from something he’ll never know. _Not this night, anyway._  

“Because it’s wrong.”

He barely registers the smash of his bottle as it hits the wall. _It won’t be the last time._

_Well. Least something here’s finding release._

He only realizes minutes later that he probably shouldn’t have wasted the drink.

The hunger remains. It gnaws.

\---

Patience is a darling, really. Spike decides this after ten minutes. She’s not remotely challenging or complex, and when she talks, he can easily pay attention to everything else that’s not her.

And of course, the way she looks at him, it’s like she’s been starving in the desert and he’s a freshly cooked, juicy steak.

Spike tries not to dwell on the fact that “attainable” has never been his type.

\---

3.           _Tonight’s timeless show_

This time, she’s on edge. It’s not hard to miss. And Spike tries not to miss anything at the best of times.

She's come here without friends; stuck in a dark corner with a creature she loathes, digging up past uglies. She's asking questions she doesn’t want answered. _Every Slayer has a death wish. Even her._

He’ll make that clear soon enough.

He feels her gaze on him as he lights a match against the pool table. _Moth, meet flame._

“You think we’re dancing?”

“That’s all we’ve ever done.”

He knows it’s true. Sooner or later, she’s gonna want it. _And the second that happens, he’ll be there. He’ll slip in. Have himself a real good day._

They’re only a few steps away.

\---

He’s starving.

Of course, he’s only made consciously aware of this fact when his date asks him why he’s ogling her neck.

_“Date”? Still not quite as accurate as “would-be snack”._

But better to be staring at unrequited dinner than… other unrequited things.

\---

4.           _Knowing when to stop_

This time, she's watching her friends dance without her. It’s a moment Spike’s not about to let pass.  

_Spike: Deadly, amoral, opportunistic. Or have we forgotten?_

Right this moment though, he’s the class nerd trying to chat up the most popular girl in school.  

“Like you and I are some kind of… talking buddies?”

“Well. Saw you sitting alone. Thought, I dunno, you could with a bit of, you know, company.”

The Slayer’s not impressed. Doesn’t she know that misery loves company? _He’ll prove that to her, without a doubt, soon enough._  
  
His exit is clumsy. In his hurry to get the hell away from her blasted friends, he knocks over his drink. He’s always spilling his drink in some fashion around her.

 _“… And I think I’m hearing voices.”_  
   
Now he really is one step away from spilling his guts to her.

\---

He’s starving. It’s a dull ache in his gut, and everywhere inside of him.

Spike eyes the pale veins in Patience’s neck. If he could, he’d tear out her artery, fill himself with her spurting lifeblood.

But it wouldn’t satisfy this hunger.  

\---

5a. _Life is just this_

She’s dancing herself to death. Literally.  

He lied. He doesn’t want to see her burn. _First_ he’ll save her, _then_ he’ll kill her.

_He won’t mean to, of course. That’s just the price she’ll pay of keeping her willing slave._

There’s no peace for him, nor her, when she’s alive. But her death won’t set him free. Spike will burn before he lets her go again. _And he will._

_“You have to go on living.”_

Every night he saved her. By the look in her eyes, maybe he actually succeeded this time.

_God knows he can tell the end is near._

***

Buffy knows the truth. She has to save herself. Pull herself out of the ditch she’s been rolling around in ever since she clawed her way above ground.

There’s a morbid joke in there somewhere.

But tonight’s not the night for morbid. She’s out with the people she loves for the first time since she almost killed them all, and she’s determined to make it work, even if it kills her. Again.

She tries to ignore him lurking just at the edge of her vision.

She wonders at what point that became a regular effort.

\---

5b. _So one of us is living_

She’s hearing advice to keep living from a dead guy. _Her life: always with the irony._

But here on this empty dance floor, she can forget the audience of her horrified friends and the demon thirsting for her fiery death. For one moment of weakness, she can make believe it’s real.

_“You have to go on living.”_

She should tell him he’s wrong. She can’t live for the both of them.

  
6.          _Blinded by the light_  
   
They’re a match made in – well, not Heaven.

_“Goodbye to everything that I knew.”_

The taste of him warms her up. It’s funny - she knows he’s cold as death.

  
7.          _We are home now_

She’s hiding in the shadows with a creature she doesn’t always loathe. She even likes him, sometimes.  

“Tell me you don’t love getting away with this.”

Her friends are dancing, not a care in the world, just below.

She should tell him he’s wrong. She doesn’t love anything right now.

_Maybe she does belong with him, after all._

\---

“Hey, check out Evil Dead with Brand Spanking New Drusilla Knock-Off.” Xander’s voice cuts into Buffy’s unhappy trip down memory lane. _So much for a Night of De-Angsting. They should have chosen a night where Aimee Mann wasn’t playing._

_“From behind the screen it can look so perfect…”_

“Sweet girl, looks like.” Willow’s sardonic voice adds to the noise.

_“People are tricky, you can’t afford to show…”_

 “I’m particularly fond of the tongue and lip piercings.” Xander again. “That’s my idea of a good time.”

“Spike’s too, apparently.” And back to Willow.

They both look at Buffy then, non-verbally asking permission to continue with the mockery. Like we’re not all doomed to badness, she thinks briefly.

_“… anything risky, anything they don’t know.”_

“I think Harmony would be jealous,” she contributes. It’s a weak offering, but they chuckle.

The conversation moves on, to places far, far away from anything worth talking about. Buffy sips her piña colada.  

_“I get lost in space that goes on forever.”_

When her friends aren’t looking, she sneaks a glance in the direction of the stairs. Allows herself a moment of weakness.

_Just one moment. She’ll be safe._

He meets her gaze for the first time.  

_“... And you make all the rest just an afterthought.”_

She forgot - there’s nothing safe about these moments. There never was. She’s prepared to see the ecstasy of release, the comfort of death.

_“And I believe it’s you who could make it better…”_

But she meets his eyes, and she sees his hope. It burns and consumes.

_“… But it’s not.”_

She looks away.


End file.
